From Silent Dreams We Never Wake
by rayychel infinity
Summary: Kurt meets Blaine on the staircase at Dalton, but does he meet all of him? Blaine has some demons of his own that are more than just memories of past bullies and Kurt is unsuspecting.
1. I Can't Help This Feeling Anymore

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not own _Glee_, Fox does. And Ryan Murphy. Title from "This Is The Best Day Ever" by My Chemical Romance.

So this story. I've been fascinated with dissociative identity disorder (commonly known as multiple personalities) since I was in middle school and had never attempted fic with them because it's frankly not an easy thing to write since there's a lot more than just having another voice inside your head. I've been nursing this idea of Blaine housing another personality, someone that's the complete polar opposite of him, for a few weeks now.

There's a big possibility that this story could be extremely triggering for some people, and even though it's going to be tame for quite some time I'm keeping the rating at M, just to be safe. It follows "Never Been Kissed" for this installment and will probably stray in the next few chapters when you learn more about Blaine's internal struggles and home life. And even though I don't really like doing this, most of this will be written third-person omniscient since it's rather hard to discuss the two sides of Blaine when it's just Kurt's point of view.

Not really any warnings for this chapter, but I'll post them when there are, just like I always do :)

**xxxxXxxxx**

Kurt has always thought that angels were just some Christmas gimmick, just another way for religious zealots to con gullible, desperate people in joining churches and frivolously tossing their money away, but his first visit to Dalton changes all of that.

He, like most of the word, has always heard the lore of the lovers who see each other and immediately get a pulling in their gut, an aching in their heart as their eyes lock that tells them that they're meant to be together forever. God knows he's seen enough Broadway musicals where a soulmate is as easy to find as a cheap designer knockoff in New York City.

Living in a small town like Lima, though, doesn't offer him much of an opportunity, if any, to find his own personal happiness.

Life hasn't exactly been easy for Kurt, but he's a strong individual. He's brought himself back up as many times as he's been brought down. He's hidden countless bruised ribs and aching shoulders from his father and stepmother and never once vocally complained about it. Sure, he's competitive, but it's only because he wants out of Lima, out of Ohio because here he feels caged, like he doesn't have enough room to stretch his wings and let loose who he _really_ is.

His aloofness that he adopts for McKinley seemingly evaporates almost instantaneously the second he steps into the Dalton entryway. Coming from a perfectly normal middle-class family, from an average public high school, the marble floors and maple paneling of Dalton Academy are far cries from the squeaky, scuffed linoleum and pockmarked plaster walls of his own high school.

Everything here looks like it's jumped out from a history textbook and it's all just so _gorgeous_ that Kurt never wants to leave after the heavy oak doors close behind him. The stair railings are wrought iron, the floor a black-and-white checkered cool marble. He feels out of place with his public-school mannerisms and naivety. He's also _spying_ for his glee club, a tactic that's crass enough to make any number of the boys here cringe, Kurt's sure.

Speaking of, the boys are all dressed the same; impeccably, of course, such a building would seemingly require such rigidity, donning navy blazers with red piping, gray slacks, blue-and-red striped ties, and white dress shirts, a standard-issue item for private schools. Kurt assumes that there must be _something_ going on because all the boys are doing a fantastic job at reenacting _The Lion King_'s fabled wildebeest stampede as they all head for some similar direction.

He takes off his dark glasses as he begins to descend the staircase and tries his best not to stand out too much with his own knockoff NYC version of the Dalton uniform. His bag is a familiar comfort and he feels safe when he wraps his hand around the well-worn leather strap and pulls it close to his side. His shoulders get knocked a few times by passing students and he tries his best not to cringe and flinch away, nasty memories of such shoulder-knocking that resulted in his body meeting rather roughly with metal locker doors surfacing fresh in his mind. These boys don't know him; they don't mean any harm.

Kurt reaches the end of the staircase and sees one boy standing there, head turned away, and Kurt thinks _now or never, better find out what's going on so I can come back and say I at least did _something, and he utters three sentences that change his life forever.

"Excuse me, um, hi. Can I ask you a question? I'm new here."

The boy turns around. Like a true cliché, Kurt's heart stops and his breath catches in his throat and he can only get lost in those huge honey hazel eyes and kind smile for a few moments before the sound dims and the whole world tunnel visions down to just them.

It's an equally-as-enthusiastic smile, a kindhearted offer as a hand extends in greeting. When he speaks this boy's voice is warm and cradles Kurt like a blanket. Kurt's eyelashes flutter coquettishly, an unconscious reaction, and he takes this boy's hand.

It's the first time he's ever linked hands with another boy. That smile's still there, still warm and Kurt feels so _safe_, tries to lose himself in the melodic tones as Mystery Boy becomes a little less mysterious with three simple words.

"My name's Blaine."

**xxxxXxxxx**

Blaine is the haven Kurt's never allowed himself to have. Around him Kurt can let his guard down, speak freely about his trials and tribulations and not worry too much that tears drip almost steadily down onto the plastic of his coffee lid. Blaine, who just serenaded Dalton with "Teenage Dream" like he was born to work a crowd, who quietly and politely asked his friends Wes and David to leave them alone once the first few tears shone like crystals on Kurt's pale skin.

Kurt knows he's damaged. He can't face his bullies anymore. The slam of a locker is enough to make him jump and look around for an exit. The physical ache has faded to a dull, ever-present throb but the emotional ache is fresh and new and Kurt sometimes wants to curl in on himself to try to make the pain stop. It never does.

Blaine, he tells him it's okay. He spins his own tale about how he ran away from his own bullies, how he regrets it and doesn't want Kurt to go through the same things. Kurt trusts this new kid, the one with large, expressive hazel eyes and well-coiffed hair. The one who's gay and damaged like him but has managed to turn his life around since transferring to Dalton.

"Music," Blaine tells Kurt with a little half-smile. "Make your life all about music. It's theraputic. The first day that I came home from school with a couple bruised ribs I locked myself in my room and sang Simple Plan until I physically couldn't anymore." He laughs at the appalled look on Kurt's face. "Believe me, the raw power and emotion helped me through one of the roughest times in my life. Don't knock it."

His mood dims quickly as he wraps his hands around his mostly-empty coffee cup and looks around the deserted common room, searching for a distraction but clearly not finding one. Kurt watches rapturously, taking in the set of Blaine's jaw and the furrow of his brows.

"It didn't work for long," Blaine says after a heavy silence, his own insecurities leaking through cracks in his well-preserved mask, unraveling the corners of his immaculate uniform until little threads of navy and red are piled on the floor. "So I came here. But I love Dalton, I do. And it's not up to me whether you come here or not because I know it's expensive, but Kurt—" He takes Kurt's hand and Kurt tries not to shudder at the warmth. Blaine's gaze is serious yet inviting, "I just want you to know I'm here for you, one hundred percent."

"Thanks," Kurt says. His voice cracks and he studies the wood grain of the table until he gets his emotions under control. The last thing he needs is to lose it in front of someone that he's just met. The smile is back on Blaine's face when Kurt redirects his gaze upward and Kurt gives him a watery smile in return, wiping at his eyes with his free hand and shakily laughing. "Sorry, I just… This is a lot for me. I'm not used to people paying so much attention to my problems."

Blaine gets up and tugs Kurt into a standing position using their still-interlocked hands. "If you need anything, anything at all." He pauses to toss his empty cup in a nearby trash bin and then rummages in his own bag for a pen and piece of paper, releasing Kurt's hand in the process. He tries not to lament on this fact. "Call me or text me. The lines are always open."

He hands the hastily-torn paper to Kurt, his phone number written with black fine-point pen in surprisingly tidy, all-caps scrawl. Kurt accepts it with unsteady fingers and pockets it. He feels a sense of pride at scoring a—for lack of a better word, _hot_—boy's number without even asking. Who knew all he'd have to do was be broken almost beyond repair?

Blaine squeezes Kurt's shoulder encouragingly, taking a few steps toward the door. "Promise you'll call?" His eyes seem to sparkle and almost change color. "Because, I mean, you didn't give me your number."

Kurt laughs and promises Blaine that yes, he'll call, and then Blaine's footsteps echo down the hall and Kurt is standing alone in the Dalton common room surrounded by expensive cherrywood tables and chairs and the spicy notes of Blaine's cologne. His pocket feels heavy with the piece of paper that Blaine had given him.

When he exits the school the sun somehow seems brighter, his _future _seems brighter. He doesn't care that his plan of spying on the Warblers had technically failed; he'd gained so much more instead.

And that was enough to put the bounce back in his step.

**xxxxXxxxx**

_Hey. Uh. It's Kurt. Kurt Hummel. You know, that weepy kid that was at Dalton yesterday._

It's stupid and too insecure and not like his usual self, but Kurt doesn't really care. It's more than enough that Blaine had so readily given his number out, offering not just to chat but to be a rock, a shoulder to cry on. Kurt doesn't know how busy Blaine is, whether he has a job or not, so he doesn't expect a reply for at least a couple hours. He's pleasantly surprised when his phone vibrates on his desk five or so minutes after sending the text.

_Hi, kurt :) you didn't seem too weepy... but then again, i was a wreck when i transferred._

Kurt pushes his English assignment on the latest five chapters of "The Bell Jar" aside and rests his elbows on his desk, contemplating his next move. It was refreshing and also really depressing for this to be the only means of communication between them.

Blaine was very attractive, Kurt had noticed this even before he had turned around—he had some extremely nice profiling—and while having another boy who knew what he was going through was nice… Kurt couldn't deny that he wanted this to go somewhere. But without the open, airy halls of Dalton and the comforting sound of Blaine's voice everything was somehow awkward, the same step that had been skipped the previous day.

Kurt didn't want to lose him, not yet. He creates and erases several drafts of the same message before he's finally comfortable enough to thumb the send button and watch the little green bubble appear underneath the gray one that contained Blaine's message. _I just wanted to say thank you for listening yesterday. It really meant a lot to me._

_Of course, kurt. I told you i'm always here for you. And i'll always have coffee for you—nonfat mocha latte, right?_

Kurt is, needless to say, impressed. He could easily be someone who changes their order every time that they go into a coffee shop, but somehow Blaine _knows_ that a nonfat mocha is Kurt's usual, like he's known Kurt's been getting them exclusively since his freshman year when he'd first tried them. Kurt smiles almost dreamily.

_Where have you been all my life?_

Kurt can almost hear Blaine's laugh as he replies _Westerville ;)_

He follows up with _When are you coming back to dalton to spy on us? We could have another coffee date then and you could tell me some more about yourself._

He tries his best to ignore the excited flips that his stomach is doing at the mention of the word "date." Blaine wants to be his mentor, _just _a friend and close confidante, and here Kurt is, being hasty and letting his feelings run rampant at a simple text message.

That _stupid_ suggestive winking emoticon, though. Kurt groans and wills his brain to stop being so hasty and so teenage-ish and so damn _wired_ to his dick because he wants to let it just be a friendly remark because he knows that he's definitely sent winking faces to people he considers only friends before. He's really just looking way too far into this situation and all because some attractive prep school boy had paid attention to him.

_Ugh, was I really that obvious? _

_Painfully so, im afraid to say. Most new kids don't forget their uniforms if they want to make it the full day. They're pretty strict about that._

_Well, for the record, spying wasn't my idea. I was sort of conned into it. But your glee club is amazing._

_The warblers take their craft seriously. Glad we could at least entertain you for a few hours._

Kurt had, truthfully, been shocked at how well-trained the Warblers were. They were disciplined but charismatic, and not one single boy looked like he'd rather be up front singing Blaine's solo. Kurt thinks back to Rachel Berry's dramatic storm-outs when she didn't get her way, how everyone was almost constantly fighting over who got the next solo even though they were all a team and it shouldn't matter because they're all equally talented and everyone gets to shine at some point.

_New Directions could take a note or two from the Warblers_, Kurt thinks darkly as he texts Blaine that _Thanks, you did. But I have to go; English homework about Sylvia Plath's spiral down into depression_.

_Avoid any ovens_ is Blaine's response.

Kurt can't help but laugh and reply with _:)_ because it won't hurt to indulge in his bourgeoning crush, right? He locks his iPhone with a self-satisfied nod and flips open his notebook to begin the essay questions, picturing Blaine's kind face and wise words of _prejudice is just ignorance _and adorable smile.

Right.

**xxxxXxxxx**

In Westerville, in the semi-darkness of a single dorm room lit only with the yellowish light of a small desk lamp, Blaine smiles at Kurt's last text and locks his phone, placing it gently on the desk next to his laptop. It's eerily silent in the East dorm, the usual distant, muffled music or voices rare. Most of the boys have already gone to bed.

The cuffs on his white shirt are rolled up to his elbows messily, wrinkles creasing and crossing the thin fabric with reckless abandon. He stares at the closed lid of his Macbook, tapping his fingers restlessly. This kid, Kurt, seemed so nice but so naïve, so desperate for a human connection that he must not have a lot of back at home.

He'd been soft-spoken and almost unwilling to open up but also oddly trusting in a way, as if Blaine could say anything and he'd drink it all in like he was James Franco as Aron Ralston and Blaine was the last few drops of water remaining in the bottle in _127 Hours_.

Blaine knows that this is Ohio, that boys like them are sparse. He's had his own share of demons, his own reasoning for leaving public school. Blaine's not exactly proud of himself for doing what he did, but there's no going back now and he really has become a better person, a better student, a better _citizen_ now because he's overcome.

_What Kurt needs_, Blaine thinks as he flips open the laptop and powers it on, _is a mentor. Someone to guide him and help him through the bullying—the kind of person that I didn't have in public school. Someone who can give him courage and self-assurance_.

The voice, when it comes, is low and menacing; a continuous, monotonous bass note.

_Of course that's you, isn't it, Blaine? Always helping the charity cases._

Blaine blinks and rubs at his eyes with his index finger and thumb, typing quickly on the keyboard. The clicking is the only noise in the otherwise-silent room and the sudden feeling of something lurking in the shadows with huge claws and dripping fangs swims into his mind. Goosebumps appear on his arms, unbidden, and he tries to shake the feeling off but physically can't.

He feels like he's drowning, suffocating, choking and he draws his shoulders together, hunching up and trying to lose himself in the comforting blue-white glow of his computer screen that reflects in his tired eyes. His jaw sets and he tries to channel all his focus and energy on reading the article for his history class that he should have read two days ago.

_My, and he _is_ a charity case, isn't he? Crying and you hadn't even known him for an hour_.

The same sentence about freight steamers is read three times without Blaine absorbing any of the information. There's a buzzing at the back of his mind, like white noise or a hive of bees, and he tries to ignore that taunting voice and those dagger-sharp words. He's knows it's futile, that he's never been able to ignore _him_.

_Then again, all gay men are like that, aren't they, Blainey?_

"Shut up," Blaine growls, squeezing his eyes shut and clutching at his hair, the painful tugging and separating of the strands from where they're gelled together offering a momentary relief that's over way too soon. The words don't hurt as much anymore—he's heard them all his life—but he can't escape them, especially not now, when they're thrown from inside his head, when it's a part of _him_ that's doing it.

A dark chuckle seems to echo all around the room, swallowing him whole like the whale that swallowed Jonah, making him hurriedly flick on the overhead light followed by his bedside light to stave off any shadows. His heart pounds in his chest and his breath comes in rapid bursts. _You can never shut me up, Blaine_.

Blaine's laptop hums gently on the desk, paragraphs of tiny text on the evolution of the shipping industry beckoning him like a cloying scent or a beautiful picture. Reading is a sanctuary; it's something he knows, something he can control the speed and duration of. His knees shake when he walks back to his desk and he sinks into his chair like a weary traveler.

The deep voice is gone—for now. Blaine scrubs a hand over his face, sniffing back the mixture of tears and snot that always, always come when he's attacked when he's alone. Suddenly catching up on his homework when sun is slanting through the Dalton-blue curtains seems more appealing.

The world is always kinder when the sun is up. With a resigned sigh and a forlorn look at the article and the possible repercussion if he forgets to read it Blaine powers down his Macbook, closing the lid gently and switching off the desk lamp, then the overhead light.

His fingers shake as he undoes each of the buttons on his shirt. It takes him a good five minutes to do a task that could usually be done in under a minute as he pauses frequently to try and abate the flow of tears prickling hotly at his eyes, his shirt hanging loose and open, draped over his shoulders. His quiet hiccups are the only noise in the room.

He tosses the shirt and his slacks in a heap on the floor, leaving him in just a pair of Homer Simpson boxers—a gift last birthday from Nick, the humor in them something that he can't appreciate in his anxiety-induced state. The ever-present bottle of water sits pressed against the white wall by his bed and Blaine shakily grabs it, twisting off the top and taking a short swig, letting the semi-warm liquid slide down his throat, a temperature that would usually disgust him and have him refilling the bottle before going to bed. Right now it feels like heaven.

The small white pills—Klonopin, for his anxiety—rattle inside the little orange bottle as Blaine screws it open, dumping the correct dosage after a few tries into his palm and popping them into his mouth, chasing them with a larger swig of water. He makes a face, a habit left over from his childhood.

Blaine climbs into bed and shuts off the light after a moment's consideration. He closes his eyes and lets the silence of the room, of the dorm wing, engulf him. He hopes that he wakes up still in his own bed the next morning. He doesn't want to hear the voice again, not tonight. Not ever, but Blaine knows that won't happen.

They always say you're your own worst enemy.

He knows firsthand how chillingly true that really is.


	2. This Venom Gaping Hole

The next day Kurt could practically skip around the school. He feels bubbly inside, like a corked bottle of champagne aching to be popped open. Even though the boys' original mission to spy had been thwarted the moment that Kurt had met Blaine on the staircase, for once Kurt could care less about the impending competition and what his screw-up could cost New Directions.

He'd actually _met_ someone, someone like him, a boy who had gone through similar torment and came out stronger on the other side because of it, and they'd _texted_ for almost an hour. Hope flares in Kurt's chest as he remembers Blaine's sincere tone and warm hazel eyes as they spoke at Dalton, his texts the following evening that seemed to carry that same warm, non-judgmental tone and the warm feel of his palm against Kurt's. Everything about him seemed to be warm, like dusk on lazy summer days when the temperature's cooled down just right.

Kurt wants to hear his voice again, memorize the lilt of his words and honey-sweet tone that matches his eyes. He knows he's being a silly teenager with a crush, but this is the first time a silly teenage crush hasn't been specifically unrequited love. Though they were only friends, if Kurt was willing to use that label, Blaine was actually gay, not straight, making this a whole new set of circumstances.

He's never been allowed to crush, not here in Ohio. He feels like an actual teenager, and though the Quinn-Finn-Rachel drama grates on his every nerve and even some nerves that he didn't know existed, he had always found himself sulking at the back of his mind because he could never have those things to complain about. He'd have to wait until he moved to New York in two years and then nothing would be high-school easy. It would be adult problems with adult consequences and he could actually, legitmately get hurt in a way that wouldn't be easily fixed.

Speaking of, this is a lot different from the Finn faux pas last year. Kurt had thought that an ache in your chest and a trembling sigh of longing were the first signs of love. In under a minute at Dalton he'd had his breath stolen away and his gaze fixated on another person while the world zeroed down to just them. There had been no room for longing sighs and an aching chests. There had been no room for anything except the realization that this boy, the one with an amazing voice and an absolutely giddy presence, could be the _one_.

The bell rings through the halls, signaling second period. Second period means resource management, and resource management means Mercedes, who will no doubt be curious as to every detail about this "Warbler boy." Kurt doesn't plan on leaving anything out.

**xxxxXxxxx**

"I swear, 'Cedes, he's like… If I believed in God, he'd be _God_," Kurt says in their shared resource management class. He rests his chin on his palm and stares down at his silent phone on his lap like it's going to be the one to text Blaine, and Kurt kind of wishes that it would because somehow texting him is becoming almost nerve-wracking. It's that damn crush that he's got that he's too afraid to mention because it's so incredibly cliché to meet up and fall head over heels in lust for the only other gay kid he's ever met.

"Are you sure it's not just the uniform? Lord knows that I love a man in uniform," Mercedes says, scribbling down an answer on her worksheet—the same worksheet that still lay, unfilled, on Kurt's desk. He doesn't really care right now. "But you've known him for, what, two days now?"

"Two glorious days," Kurt replies with a sigh, flipping his pencil absentmindedly over and over through his fingers. "Blazer and all."

Mercedes lifts her head up and stares at Kurt's vacant, lovestruck expression, the little curve to his lips and glint to his eye. She purses her lips disapprovingly. "Boy, you are getting in way over your head."

Kurt grabs his own worksheet as a distraction from what he's knows is way too true and looks up to the board, studying the information chalked there before filling in the first blank like it had been his intention all along not to copy the classwork from Mercedes while picturing who'd be wearing what in his and Blaine's wedding, and should it be summer or fall? Which color schemes were better? "You're just jealous that I was the one recruited to spy there and therefore met the most beautiful man to ever walk this earth."

"He's gay," Mercedes replies dryly. "That's like being mad at Quinn for getting the last size-two prom dress." She knocks Kurt's arm out of the way with a huff and erases his answer, scribbling in her own cursive the correct one.

Kurt shoots her a grateful look. "In all honesty, though," he begins slowly, feeling doubt creep up on him and squashing wedding plans under a tidal wave of self-deprecation, "Blaine really is nice, and I do really like him as a friend. At least, that's what I hope we are." He laughs with only a touch of humor in it. He doesn't want to face the reality that he's only met Blaine once and they haven't texted since last night, and while that wouldn't be a cause for alarm for most kids, this is _Kurt Hummel_. Being overdramatic is as common with him as being sarcastic. Dalton could very well have some community-service-charity requirement thing going on where the boys have to help out at least one sad, pathetic human being before they're allowed to graduate. Blaine and his Warbler friends could be laughing at him right now and he'd ben none the wiser.

Maybe he's being a little too hard on himself, but that familiar, choking squeeze of doubt and fear is back in his chest, growing more and more until his body is practically thrumming with it and he feels like he could keel over and die at any given second.

Mercedes covers his hand with her own, smiling and squeezing gently like she knows what's going through Kurt's head and bless her, she probably does. "Honey, he'd have to be crazy not to fall in love with your personality. Now stop distracting me; I've almost got this assignment done, and with the rate _you're_ going at it I'm going to have to work overtime." Kurt nudges her playfully with an indignant "Hey!" and she laughs and grins.

The subject is changed once their worksheets are complete and turned in and there's still ten minutes left on the clock before the period ends. They use that time to gossip and discuss the newest _Vogue_ and _Cosmo_ with relish, and Kurt says that he'll have Mercedes over on Friday to try out some new skin thing that he read about that's supposed to be amazing.

Mercedes agrees and say she'll bring food and DVDs, debating whether they should continue their string of TV-on-DVD or if she'll go classic with old films and musicals. Though Kurt's lips are stretching into a smile at the prospect of spending time with one of his closest friends and either McDreamy or Judy, he's also got more than face masks and a quote unquote girls' night on the mind.

A certain short dark-haired singer in a well-fitted blazer flits periodically through his thoughts. He sighs, hoping Mercedes doesn't notice that he's half-tuned out of whatever he's saying and imagining what life at McKinley would be like if Blaine went here instead. _Probably doubly as worse_, he thinks morosely, visions of Blaine being slushie-initiated into the school pushing out any other good visions of him in that damn blazer.

Though his day is going surprisingly good so far, he still pulls out his phone and texts Blaine under the table without thinking twice about it, locking the screen and sliding it back into his bag when he's done. Mercedes is still talking, but he now gives her his full, undivided, Blaine-free attention.

The bell rings. The switch is flipped, and "good" goes to "normal" and to "bad."

**xxxxXxxxx**

A metal twang and a loud crash echo and fade, lost in the noise of the crowded hallway.

Kurt's shoulder aches and there's a dampness on the back of his shirt that feels suspiciously like blood. He wishes that Blaine was closer than two hours away, that they had talked more before this point so that he could tell him just what's going on and that _someone_ in this school would just notice already that this is getting worse and worse, so much so that he's actually starting to fear walking down the hallway by himself. Dampness now prickles at his eyes and he refuses, absolutely _refuses_ to cry and give Karofsky the satisfaction of knowing how much physical and emotional pain he's in right now.

He straightens his shoulders, squeezing his eyes shut at the onslaught of pain that movement brings, and walks onward to his next class like nothing is wrong. He can be tough, he can show everyone that nothing, not clothes-and-skin staining corn syrup and freezing crushed ice, not locker slams and dumpster dives, will ever make him crack.

He can show them, yes, because Kurt Hummel's always been a good actor. Unfortunately, it's all a matter of him believing what he's selling, and the map of scars on his back and the blood on his shirt isn't very convincing. He's slowly falling down, piece by piece, the fight slowly leaving his veins to make way for resignation. No amount of acting can cover this up.

No one's bothering to stop it.

He's not even bothering to stop it anymore.

**xxxxXxxxx**

Blaine never wakes up peacefully like they do in the movies or cartoons. There's no whimsical music or birds tweeting happily at his windowsill. Light doesn't stream in yellow ribbons onto the floor or his bed. He doesn't slowly blink his eyes open and yawn through a smile, stretching and feeling rested and ready for the day.

When he wakes up the first thing he does is check his surroundings, making sure he's in his room or at least somewhere that he relatively knows. The next thing he does is check for physical damage to property in the room or injury to himself. He goes to bed every night dreading what could happen while this side of him is powered down and wakes up every morning expecting it to be true.

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

Today he wakes up to his alarm, which is good. It lets him know that he's in his dorm and if he left at all during the night he found his way back. Shutting off the shrill, metallic bleating, Blaine tosses the covers to the side and swings his body around so that his feet are on the floor.

Nothing hurts and at first glance around the room nothing's broken, either. He breathes a sigh of relief and tries to calm his nerves and wildly-beating heart. It can't be healthy, this constant worrying, but it's not like he can actually do anything about it. Not with… not with _him_ still there.

Blaine shudders, sucks in a breath and tries to think of the calculus test he has today, anything but that nagging presence constantly at the back of his mind. If he dwells on it it's only going to grow and grow and last night will happen all over again.

Or, it could be worse. He's woken up in different rooms before. He's been cut and bruised and sore and had no recollection of anything at all. What terrified him more than the simple fact that one day he might not wake up at all was that he couldn't control this. No matter how much medication he was on, or how much therapy he went to, that dark part of him was always waiting, eager, like a jungle cat, poised and ready to pounce at a moment's notice.

Not many boys in the school realized it, but it took Blaine an insane amount of courage to get up every morning and face the world. He hates waking up in an empty room, hates going to sleep without being comforted that someone was only a few feet away should a need arise, but when he'd explained his condition to the headmaster upon his first day as a transfer student they'd both mutually agreed: He was too unpredictable, too _dangerous_ if something happened, and putting another student's life in danger wasn't worth the inevitable lawsuit that would follow should Blaine's… alter ego get violent.

Many of the boys Blaine's talked to would kill for a single-person dorm, always complaining that their roommate had terrible hygiene or didn't clean up after themselves or sounded like a fleet of chainsaws buzzing down Christmas trees. Blaine always smiles at them and shrugs. He's contemplated saying _Well, get yourself a violent, unpredictable alter ego and a single-person room is all yours_ but finds it in bad taste.

Blaine knows that whatever is said or goes through his mind _he_ knows as well, and _he_ just may like that dark-humored joke a little too much.

Scrubbing at his face, Blaine sits in silence for another moment or two before reaching and feeling around on the smooth wood of the nightstand until he locates his phone. After it's fully powered up he sees that Kurt sent him a text message a little bit ago, and opening it up shows him _School seriously sucks :(_

Blaine's heart aches. He knows the position that Kurt's in all too well and knows that no amount of overprotective glee club friends can protect him all the time. Kurt's beating himself up on the inside; Blaine had gathered that much from their first meeting. The obscene amount of loneliness and a thirst to prove himself was obvious in Kurt's eyes.

The only time that those eyes had been a clear, happy blue was during the performance. He'd smiled, then, too. A dazzled, genuine smile that Blaine couldn't keep his eyes off of. A swooping feeling rolls through his chest at the memory and catches him by surprise; he doesn't know that much about Kurt yet, only the minor details that he's sure all of Kurt's friends know. Hell, he could just be a friend to Kurt, someone who he can relate to.

Shaking his head, Blaine's texting a reply almost before he's aware what he's doing.

_Courage_

He even signs his name at the bottom, a temporary lapse in judgment because, obviously, Kurt's well-aware who he's texting. He's not sure when Kurt will get it, or how he'll react, but he finds that he doesn't care. It makes him happy enough to know that Kurt's willing to be a little bit open about his feelings and inner conflicts.

When Blaine's setting his phone back down on the nightstand, standing up to reach for his shower caddy, he catches the orange of his medicine bottle out of the corner of his eye, nestled against the white wall and flanked by a half-empty water bottle.

Blaine's throat tightens. Kurt had been willing to tell him some of the gory details about his life, about his bullying and had even openly cried, something Blaine has always had trouble doing in front of others, but he can't even tell Kurt about his own problems.

_But you did tell him about the physical aspect of your own bullying_, he thinks. Deep down he knows that's not good enough, it's too easy to do and something he's done too many times with countless family and therapists and doctors and friends. This other side of him, the reason why he's always jumpy and nervous, that's the hardest part.

The boys here know because most of them, like Blaine, live on campus. They need to know the risks. His parents know. But outside of that, no one else does. Blaine feels that if he tells Kurt it's like he's giving away a part of himself, a part that's always been locked up, something that even _he's_ afraid of.

He hasn't even told Kurt about his parents, why there's a reason besides public school bullying and violent mental capabilities he's going to a private school.

_No_. Dwelling on that, on his summers at home where he's sure even living at Number Four Privet Drive would be more enjoyable, only serve to upset him further. He grabs his shower caddy from the drawer at the bottom of his nightstand and crosses the room.

He'll shower and get ready, then go down and meet with Trent, Nick, and Jeff for breakfast like he always does. He'll get engrossed in his schoolwork and pay the same dutiful attention in his classes as he always does. He'll take his calculus test and hopefully do well since he's been studying all week.

Like he always does.

Blaine has routine, but that routine is almost always interrupted. He doesn't expect much. He never has.


	3. This Is How I Disappear

_Courage_

_-Blaine_

Kurt hadn't really expected much of a reply—or a reply at all, for that matter—from Blaine, but there it is, sent from Blaine's phone and signed in his name. It isn't much; really, there's no novel or a one-liner full of wisdom. It's just a simple word, something Kurt's heard innumerable times in his life.

But it's a try. It's an effort not many people have given towards Kurt and his problems in his whole life and Kurt sort of feels like maybe the dreams he'd had as a kid weren't as childish as he's led himself to believe. He's always wanted a Prince Charming, a knight in shining armor to rescue him from the depths of his bullied, mundane life.

At first he'd been angry when he'd had to go spy on Dalton alone. Angry because he was being forced to go to a school that he didn't know by himself and angry because none of the boys were taking his direction. This was a school full of boys who were probably infinitely more talented than the New Directions or even Kurt himself. This was every single one of his fears stacked on top of each other and Kurt had felt like he was a solider going into battle without a weapon.

All it had taken was one pair of rounded hazel eyes and one kind voice.

Kurt's too busy smiling down at his phone, at Blaine's text, to notice the footsteps behind him that blend in much too well with the usual background noise of the halls. It's not until his phone is slapped crudely out of his hands, clattering noisily to the floor, and his shoulder is reconnecting with a locker that Kurt takes notice of anything. He looks up, jaw dropped slightly in shock, ignoring the throbbing. A very familiar body is nearing the locker room.

Karofsky. Of course that insufferable oaf would be the one to have the audacity and lack of respect for boundaries or personal property. _After all_, Kurt thinks as anger swells up inside him and grows hotter and hotter, _he's been attacking me more and more_.

A sharp, infuriated "Hey!" echoes in the mostly-empty hallway, and it's a few seconds before Kurt realizes that _he's_ the one who had shouted. It's testament to how no one in this school pays attention when not a single head turns even as his voice rings out. He heads for the locker room.

**xxxxXxxxx**

Unfamiliar lips on his, tasting of desperation and self-hatred and so, so much anger.

Underneath the disgust that coils throughout Kurt's stomach, sliding and trying to force its way back up his throat in the form of vomit, he can register only one thing: that was his first kiss with a boy. His first kiss that could have been—and should have been—with someone like Blaine, someone talented and lovely and pure of heart.

His first kiss was with David Karofsky, the bully who had threatened him and pushed him and slushied him, the bully who had tried to hard to break him without any justification to his actions and to whom Kurt had stood up against countless times despite feeling decidedly a lot less braver on the inside than he appeared on the outside.

As the smell of sweat and dirty gym clothes gets to him Kurt runs for the bathroom, barely making it to the stall before he's kneeling down on the grimy bathroom floor, curling his hands around the cold porcelain lip of the toilet bowl. The slithering and coil in his stomach finally works its way up and he retches, letting out a loud, broken sob.

He'd finally found Karofsky's justification.

And he'd be dead if he ever mentioned it.

**xxxxXxxxx**

Kurt calls Blaine that night.

He knows that they haven't spoken out loud to each other since Dalton, but he's taken three showers since he got home, brushed his teeth double that, and he still feels disgusting and used and unclean. He'd told his dad that he'd begun feeling a bit under the weather from all the stress about competition and his usual school workload, and then he'd quickly retreated to his room.

There had been times in the past where he has called hotlines. He's asked countless faceless people for advice, and they'd given it, clearly, but none of it ever made him feel better, made him feel braver. All those times when he'd hung up the phone he felt no different than he had before.

He was still swimming in a void, pressure crushing him and gravity sucking him in and keeping him in the middle of all the despair. He still had no one to relate to. He was still bullied. He still wasn't _normal_ enough for anyone.

For the first time, a call for advice has a face, a name, a background.

When the ringing on the other end stops Kurt doesn't let Blaine speak before he's saying, "Have you ever been kissed?"

There's nothing but a stunned silence and slight crackling of interference on Blaine's end for a couple moments. Kurt pulls the blanket he's got wrapped around his body tighter.

"_I—yes," _Blaine says slowly. _"On a dare at some party a friend of mine was throwing. I think it was in seventh grade. It was when… when I found out that I liked boys."_

Kurt swallows. "Did you… like it?"

Blaine laughs a little, softly, an edge of uncomfortable awkwardness about it. _"I kind of did, yeah,"_ he says eventually. _"It was a friend, so it's not like it was someone that I didn't know. He was just… Well, he didn't like it as much. He had a girlfriend and all, and I was maybe a little vocal about how much I liked it."_

"Were you out yet?"

"_No."_ Blaine pauses and says with the air of a man explaining himself again to someone who doesn't understand, _"the kiss was what led me to realize that I liked boys. Not that I didn't have a few guesses beforehand or anything. It was just that pivotal point, I guess."_

"Oh, yeah," Kurt says, feeling a little embarrassed.

Blaine seems to catch on that something's not right. _"Are you okay?"_ he asks. _"You're usually more observant. Is there something bothering you?"_ His tone instantly hardens. _"Is it someone at school?"_

Kurt's stomachs twists uncomfortably again. He wishes that he was in a different situation right now and that he could just say yes and spill all of his worries and secrets and troubles to Blaine because this is just further proof that he really does care. Tears prickle at the backs of Kurt's eyelids.

If this had been one of the hotlines he probably would have told Faceless Boy everything that had gone down. They had no personal connection to Kurt, didn't know what he looked like or where he lived. They knew what all operators know about callers: he's troubled, he needs help.

"I'm fine," he says unconvincingly. "It's nothing. I'm just stressed about Sectionals and school."

"_Right,"_ Blaine replies skeptically. _"Why did you call and ask if I've ever been kissed? Not that I don't love hearing your voice, because I do, and—"_ He cuts himself off abruptly. _"W-what I mean is that you have a nice voice, and you're a cool guy and everything…"_

Blaine immediately stops speaking and groans in frustration instead. Kurt can't help the smile spreading across his face. He clutches his phone harder in his fist and feels hope jump in his chest for the first time since he'd opened Blaine's text in the hallway. "Don't hurt yourself, Blaine," Kurt teases gently. "We're both mature teenagers here."

He wonders if Blaine can hear his heart racing through the phone.

He doesn't realize that Blaine is wondering the same thing.

Blaine chuckles, the sound small and miniscule, but it's enough for Kurt to toss away any apprehension. He'd called because he'd wanted advice at first, but there's just something about Blaine that leaves him pliant and easygoing.

"He kissed me," Kurt finally says, the words catching in his throat on the way out. Maybe he shouldn't have blurted them out but in the silence it had seemed like the logical thing to do. "Karofsky, the stupid Neanderthal who… who torments me. He kissed me today in the locker room."

The angry death threat still echoes in Kurt's ears but Blaine's breathing on the other end of the line soothes him enough that it's not quite as worrisome and ebbs into something that's almost trivial. Blaine speaks and Kurt immediately hears the raw emotion, the barely-contained fury in his voice.

"_He _what_?"_

Kurt absolutely does not let himself think of how sexy Blaine's voice is when it's thrumming with anger. "He kissed me," he repeats nonchalantly, though he's really sort of freaking out. No matter how many perfect ending scenarios he goes through, at the end of the day Blaine is still this boy that Kurt had just met and he's still not even sure if they're _friends_.

"_How could he do that?"_ Blaine seethes. _"That's just… that's just completely wrong. That's a complete invasion of your personal space, and he goes and _forces_ one on you."_

"Blaine, really, I can handle it." That's a lie. Kurt can't handle this, not anymore. He's being calm now, in the safety of his room with his door locked and a blanket thrown around him. He feels safe and comfortable here. Come tomorrow when he has to go back to McKinley, to walk those halls again and pass the scene of the crime, Kurt knows that he's going to be acting a bit differently.

Blaine takes a deep breath and seems to reign in his anger a little bit. _"Let me come to school and talk to him tomorrow at lunch."_

"Blaine, I live two hours away. I'm not letting you skip class."

"_Kurt, please."_ Blaine's voice is so determined, so caring and laced with a tiny thread of need. It registers somewhere that, _wow_, he really cares and he's really going to face a closeted bully for him. This stuff never happens to Kurt, not to the ostracized resident gay kid. It happens for all the perfect straight couples. That's how the movies and stories go.

_This could be different_, Kurt thinks. _Maybe it can happen for me_.

"Just be safe," Kurt says as his way of answering. "I said I wasn't going to tell anyone."

It was a stupid thing to say, and it's possibly the way he said it, or how no one ever utters those words unless they've been threatened with something much, much worse than physical injury, but Blaine catches on way too fast and Kurt can't stop the flinch at Blaine's next words.

"_He didn't threaten you, did he?"_

"No," Kurt lies smoothly. He twists the blanket in his fingers until the digits ache. Blaine didn't need to know any other details. He was already going out of his way just to come to McKinley and have a talk that Kurt already knew wasn't going to go over well.

He gets flashes, too-bright and too-vivid images of Karofsky punching Blaine, shoving him, threatening him in all the same ways that he'd been doing to Kurt since high school began. He doesn't want anything bad to happen, for Blaine to take on any punishment that should rightfully be Kurt's. This isn't his battle, but he's joining it.

_I don't want you getting hurt_, Kurt thinks.

"I'll be waiting for you," is what he says instead.

**xxxxXxxxx**

Blaine gets the feeling that Kurt's not telling him everything. Ruefully he thinks, _well, it's only fair. I'm not telling him everything, either._

"But Kurt's is more dangerous," he says softly, eyes trained down on the soft blue of his comforter. Kurt has someone else, a physical being, raising threats, harassing him. That sort of outward force is impossible to control.

He'd known thinking those words that it would happen. Blaine's known that for years, but he still didn't stop. Anymore, it doesn't matter what he thinks; it's like every word has been Tabooed. He's so _sick_ of this, of walking around on eggshells because of his stupid fucking problem.

The voice is still ominous. Blaine is still scared.

_So you're saying that you can control me now, Blaine?_

Blaine draws up tight on himself, knees against his chest and hands clapped to his ears. "No, no, no," he chants, squeezing his eyes so tightly shut that lights dance in the black field of his vision. "No. I can't. I can't."

He tries to clear his thoughts, envisions a blank white slate, filling up everything, but on the corners there's still darkness, still that presence that Blaine can't shake. His thoughts are tainted like they usually are and he can't stop himself.

"I just wanna help Kurt," he says in a strangled voice, heart tattooing a fierce beat on the inside of his chest. "He needs my help. He trusts me."

_Trusts you?_ The laugh is like Blaine's but down an octave, malice and scorn dripping off of it fluidly. _How can he trust you when you haven't mentioned your attachment to me?_

"Leave me alone," Blaine whimpers, untangling himself and nearly falling to the floor when he touches down with unsteady feet. "Go away, please."

_Well, since you asked so nicely…_

For a few moments he only hears the sudden silence of the room, white noise in his ears. He lets himself get too complacent, too safe, and heads for the bathroom to get ready for bed.

Blackness surrounds him and that same malicious voice whispers, _It's my turn now, Blaine. We'll let Holden take over for your little confrontation tomorrow, hmm?_

Blaine tries to scream out, to fight it and say _no, no, Kurt only wants _me_, he trusts only _mebut he's been struggling for years and in this situation he's not the strong one and no mask of bravado can change that.

Here, he's helpless.

He prays to any deity listening that it's just him, side-by-side with Kurt tomorrow. It's not too much to hope for. He _hopes_ that it isn't.

**xxxxXxxxx**

Blaine wakes up in his bed the next morning, unaware of how he got there, but everything seems to be okay, at least outwardly, nothing broken and no physical pain presenting itself. Pushing himself out of bed he grabs his uniform and gets ready as quickly as possible, sneaking out of the school and heading over to the lot designated for those students who board.

In ten minutes he's on his way to Lima. He hopes he can stay himself for the next few hours.

**xxxxXxxxx**

Karofsky is a bit more intimidating than Blaine had imagined but he doesn't back down, doesn't raise his voice and tries his best to keep things reasonable. It comes to a point where he realizes, yeah, nothing's going to help, so he lets Karofsky retreat down the stairs, Kurt staring after him with a torn look on his face.

Blaine offers to buy him lunch, noticing how well Kurt's heavy coat goes with his eyes.

Kurt agrees, taking in the well-tailored cut of Blaine's uniform.

They both skip the rest of the day and when Blaine heads back to Westerville at three to ensure that he's back for evening Warblers rehearsal it's with a certain reluctance that he hugs Kurt goodbye and gets into his car.

Blaine can see Kurt staring at him forlornly in the side mirror of his car. He's still at the entrance of McKinley's parking lot, hip cocked and bag slung over his shoulder, scarf wrapped around his graceful neck. It's like _Brokeback Mountain_ all over again.

Blaine wonders when their friendship had started to present itself as something stronger.

Kurt wonders the same thing.

In the back of Blaine's mind, Holden wonders how to get rid of Kurt as quickly as possible.


	4. Wait Until It Fades To Black

_I'm taking several liberties with finally winding up what we've seen on camera. This is the last chapter that takes place around events that have already happened, and next will be mostly Dalton, with occasional things like Regionals mixed in._

**xxxxXxxxx**

Kurt doesn't tell anyone besides his dad and Carole when he plans to transfer. He feels guilty for robbing the newlyweds of their scheduled honeymoon; especially after dropping the bombshell of _I just don't feel safe at McKinley anymore_ so soon after their wedding and the beautiful performance Finn had arranged for him.

Leaving New Directions was going to be hard, Kurt wouldn't deny that, and if he's going to be completely honest the last thing that he wants to do is start over even if Dalton is every tormented kid's dream with its zero-tolerance bullying policy, the old-estate feel that seeps into even the dorms (Blaine had showed him) and the friendly, albeit slightly bored, atmosphere the male student body projects.

The uniform thing, Kurt can probably handle that. He feels like he's a part of something special the first time that he holds one of the school's regulation ties in his hand, and all his life he's never been allowed to be part of something exclusive.

And maybe if he jazzes up his uniform his first day with a brooch, well… New school or not, he's still Kurt Hummel.

Saying goodbye to the glee club is as difficult as he'd imagined, and Kurt goes about it wrong by showing up late to rehearsal with a tight chest and throat, tears gathering in his eyes with the swollen vessels tingeing the sclera a pinkish red, and getting to the punch as quickly as he can.

He leaves the room before anyone can see that he's really, really crying, leaving Finn to field questions about a move he knew absolutely nothing about. Kurt was so selfish and maybe he's irrational, maybe he's a diva.

Maybe if he says goodbye in the harshest way possible, no one will miss him.

It's just the first in a series of lies.

**xxxxXxxxx**

Texts between Kurt and Blaine have been sparse in the past couple of weeks. Kurt has been planning the wedding that he'd briefly mentioned and Blaine has been stressing about not stressing so much that he's had to force himself to sit down every night and go through book after book in his selected reading list from his literature class.

Somewhere between the aptly-titled "Queer" and "Franny and Zooey," fourteen days have passed since Blaine has received a text message from Kurt. While sad, he wonders if maybe it means that things in Kurt's life aren't so dismal right now and that he's handling things perfectly fine on his own. _After all_, he lets himself think, _we weren't_ that _close_.

Somewhere between the first couple pages of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" Blaine's phone buzzes on his nightstand. Jostling the pill bottle in his haste, Blaine rights it before sliding his thumb across the screen of his phone to unlock it without bothering to read the text from the home screen.

_My first day is Monday_.

It's Kurt.

He'd said something, vaguely, the last time they'd met face-to-face, about considering Blaine's idea of a transfer. It appears that he'd gone through with it, and Blaine doesn't deny a victory fist pump and a leap of his heart in his chest as he texts back _You're able to pay for it and everything?_

_I sort of took away the honeymoon, and I can't buy materials for clothes or bid on eBay for awhile, but we got the money. At least the uniform means my lack of new garments isn't as tragic as it can potentially be._

_Im just glad youll be able to save me from myself_. A text that seemed innocuous in his head hits home a lot harder than Blaine wants it to when his little green bubble pops up in the conversation after he thumbs the send button. He reads over it and winces a little.

_The great Blaine Anderson needs saving?_

_If only you knew_, he thinks darkly. What he sends is _Since you last texted me ive read through three books from my selected reading list._

_Some would consider that an accomplishment_.

_It's good talking to you again, kurt. Really._

Behind his reading glasses his eyes are tired and under the blankets his limbs feel sluggish and heavy. When his phone vibrates this time it's his daily alarm, not a text. Kurt's probably asleep by now, snuggled under the covers back in Lima, and Blaine fleetingly wishes that he could be there with him. Even though he's been going to Dalton for well over two years now and has had this same room the whole time, it still doesn't feel like home, or a home that he's fashioned himself, anyway.

It could just be his mindset, or it could be the flimsy mattress covered with cheap sheets. There's always the turmoil of his own mind to potentially keep him seeking shadows and twitching in constant fear, but that's partly the reason why he takes his pills at ten-thirty every night like clockwork.

It's maybe because Blaine has never really had somewhere to call home and he's never had that great of an imagination to try to make up some fantasy world. He sits up in his bed, propping his back against the headboard, and reaches for the bottle of pills and the bottle of water. It's always the same routine, mundane like factory work, but the results are never the same.

He switches off his light after chasing the pill down with another swig of water and nestles under the covers, glasses folded up by the base of the lamp and phone plugged into the charger, alarm set now for class in the morning. His eyelids flutter after he draws them shut and the fingers on his right hand, which is buried under the pillow, twitch as he turns to face the wall.

His breathing evens out as he fades into oblivion.

**xxxxXxxxx**

Nightmares are common enough that even when he wakes in a cold sweat and full of fear, he's not too bothered for more than the initial period between dream and the waking world when everything blurs and seems like everything is vivid and anything is possible.

They tend to vary based upon his stress level or his thoughts before he falls asleep. This particular one that he awakes to with a scream embedded in his throat and a cold sweat dripping down his brow and back had him running and running and running even though his body felt like it was made of lead.

The scenery was dark and twisted, no definite beginning or end, top or bottom, and his peripheral was filled with creatures that could have stepped right out of _The Mist_: Gargantuan monsters with eight knobby legs that towered high above his point of vision and that faded into the dreamworld-oblivion, spiders that scurried along beside him with the speed and power of a prime Thoroughbred, snapping hungrily at his heels.

On the horizon—at least the best horizon that could be carved out of this world—was Kurt, waving frantically. He was too far away for Blaine to be able to make out his face, but he kept running, kept dodging the snapping spiders and feeling the low animal cries of the towering monster rumbling deep in his chest.

Kurt's mouth moves but there's no sound. Blaine feels like he's getting closer, the distance between them closing just a bit as his lungs burn and his body screams at him to lie down, take a rest, let this be over. There's the faint glimmer of Kurt's glue-gray eyes, the faintest outline and splash of color of the bow of his pink lips, the unnaturally silver light of this world catching on strands of chestnut hair.

One foot after another, Blaine runs. His heart thuds powerfully in his chest, his muscles burn, his breath comes in great heaving pants. Sweat runs down his brow and slides down his face, trickling like water down his neck: the temperature has suddenly spiked to an almost tropical atmosphere, becoming suddenly sticky and humid and vaguely sweet-smelling. The air surrounds him like a thick, stifling blanket and his lungs scream a violent protest.

He wants to yell out but even without trying to formulate the words he knows his voice is caught deep in his throat, lodged like some animal in a trap. He locks eyes with Kurt, sees that he can make out a bit more about his features now, knows it's not too far…

Kurt's spine suddenly snaps backwards as he arches in silent agony. Blaine skids to a halt, sending bits of rock and dirt scattering, and watches wide with hazel eyes, tears and sweat mixing on his face. Kurt's mouth opens in a scream unheard of by anyone other than himself and, as Blaine watches, a shape bursts forth from his torso, black and sleek and gaseous.

Kurt—or his body, whichever—crumples to the ground in a heap. No blood can be seen but Blaine's only focused on the ghost-like creature that hovers a few inches above the ground and begins to glide smoothly over to him.

Blaine keeps his eyes wide and fixated but his heart still thuds painfully in his chest, his breaths still come fast and panicked. As the presence comes closer Blaine loses his footing on a rock that hadn't been there before and falls backward, landing hard on his tailbone.

He peers upward and doesn't dare move.

The presence is gliding closer, skimming the ground, and when it comes to a halt a few inches from Blaine, he sees very familiar hazel eyes darkened with evil and hate. He sees the same curly hair and tan skin that he's all-too familiar with.

When it speaks, Blaine knows that voice from inside his head.

"Hello, Blaine."

He wakes.

His chest squeezes and he wants to scream and cry and destroy things but it's like he's paralyzed under his covers. The bed is dampened by sweat, sheets wrinkled and twisted where they're clutched in a death grip in his hand. The sun isn't even up yet.

He wants to call Kurt, text him frantically to make sure that he's still alive, but he knows that Kurt is warm and safe and unaware of the horror going on just two hours away in the mind of a boy he'd just recently met. This just isn't _fair_. He shouldn't have to go through all of this just because his parents went about everything the wrong way. He wants to be just like any other normal teenager who's slowly beginning to fall in love. He wants to be stupid and irrational and do dumb things that he'll regret ten minutes later.

He wants all of that, but before being a teenager Blaine is a sick patient.

And like any sick patient, Blaine has his good days and his bad days. This one is looking bleaker and bleaker as time wears on and the sun climbs up in the sky to shine hazily through his dark curtains.

**xxxxXxxxx**

"Blaine, you okay, man? You look a little pale."

Blaine sets his tray on the table with a sigh, sliding onto the hard plastic bench before resting his chin on the heel of his hand. He'd gotten his usual breakfast—bacon and eggs and an English muffin—but just the smell of it is making his stomach coil and revolt. "I didn't sleep well last night. I've been stressed about the tests coming up."

Nick gives him a disbelieving look but goes back to eating his cereal. Jeff stares at him harder, like he knows the real reason, and Blaine supposes that he knows enough to flesh out something close to the truth. Most boys know, but only the vaguest details possible. The specifics are left up to Blaine and the Warbler council only for the purposes of rehearsals, performances, and limits. He always feels a little bad for not letting the pair in front of him more into the not-so-secret secret but for now he's happy to just let them know that he suffers from occasional panic attacks set off from flashbacks to his previous high school.

It's a lot better than telling everyone else that he harbors a violent alter ego and has absolutely no control over himself when the alter ego takes over. People tend to view him differently when they find that out.

Blaine picks up his fork and pokes dejectedly at the pile of scrambled eggs, wondering what Kurt's up to in Lima. He's probably on his way to school right now, preparing for his last real day there. Blaine brightens a little at the knowledge that come Monday Kurt will be at his side, dressed to the nines in his uniform, smiling at him and chattering on and on like he's wont to do. He hopes that he'll audition for the Warblers.

Blaine will have to tell Kurt eventually. If he's transferring then Blaine can't keep him in the dark forever, especially if there's an emergency or if Blaine suddenly isn't… _himself_. Kurt needs to know that it's not his fault, that he can't control what happens. That no matter what may seem to come out of Blaine's mouth, he's only being used as a flesh puppet, that when he's dark and mean and hateful it's Holden at the controls, not Blaine.

Blaine wants to tell him, but he doesn't want to scare him off.

The bell rings.

**xxxxXxxxx**

From the outside, backlit by golden yellow sun, McKinley looks a lot less threatening and prison-like when Kurt knows that it's his last day here. He doesn't eye up the dumpsters in the hopes that they'll throw him in the cleanest one available if they're going that route, he doesn't stare in contempt at any of the jocks as he struts past. It's November but a few straggling birds still sing and Kurt feels as light as one, as bubbly as a canary when he reaches the front doors without so much as a jeer or ill-placed slur.

McKinley could go suck it: Kurt Hummel was leaving for Dalton Academy in less than forty-eight hours and only seven of those would be spent at this cesspool. Even the ache of leaving New Directions was dulled by the prospect of boys who got him, of _Blaine_.

When he steps into the hallways he inhales the familiar nauseating stench of burnt coffee and erasers, that tuna-lunchbox smell that he never understood. Students walk past, Goths and nerds and burnouts and Cheerios, all dressed differently from chains to short red skirts.

Though Kurt will undoubtedly miss his careful outfit planning, he's almost excited, in a weird way, to be part of the impeccable sea of blazers. He'll _belong_ and Blaine will be right at his side, guiding him and smiling that beautiful, heart-melting smile of his.

Kurt's at his locker, staring at Blaine's photo with a small smile on his face, when Brittany flounces up, cropped top showing off the sleek lines of her curves that are only further accentuated by the tight tank top she has on. Kurt closes the locker door gently, books clutched in his arms. "Hey, Britt."

"You're coming back, right?" she asks without preamble.

Kurt blinks, lips parted in a slight amount of shock. He knows he'd been expecting too much when he'd hoped that Brittany would have understood his blunt statement to the club, but Brittany is Brittany and even though this tugs at his heartstrings he still loves her.

"I'll be back on weekends," he says, resting his forehead against hers as they head for Home Ec. "But not every day. I'll be boarding at Dalton."

Brittany blinks at him innocently, tugging at a strand of her blonde hair. "Is Dalton like Hogwarts?" Her eyes suddenly brighten and she claps excitedly, almost sending her books and papers falling to the floor. "Are you a wizard?"

Kurt laughs, louder and more heartfelt than he has in a long time, and only says, "I wish."

They walk in silence for a bit, dodging students rushing to reach class. Brittany's sweet perfume fills his nostrils, reminding him of their make out sessions in the basement of his soon-to-be old house. He remembers asking her what boys' lips tasted like and he wonders if he'll figure that out at Dalton.

He didn't dwell of the locker room kiss with Karofsky. Kurt had been enshrouded with fear and self-hatred and longing and anger. He didn't bother to concentrate on the pair of lips on his. It wasn't real, it didn't count. He'd tell himself that, but the fact of the matter was that it _did_ count. It counted and it was so, so unfair.

He's shaken out of his thoughts by Brittany's voice. "Are you gonna miss us?"

A lump forms in his throat as they take a right and head down another hallway. "More than you know. I might even miss Mr. Schue's dictatorial ways."

They reach the classroom and Kurt slides into his usual seat beside Mercedes. She gives him a sad smile that he returns. "How's the last day going so far?" she asks, trying to sound happy for him, but if anyone can detect a note of sadness it's Kurt.

He shrugs and says, "Good so far, I guess. No tormenting. Who knows: maybe they'll miss me and pine for me to come back to put some meaning into their sad lives again."

"You know we all don't want you to leave, right?" Mercedes says in a rushed whisper as their teacher walks in, brushing aside Kurt's attempt at humor. "We love you and we'll fight tooth and nail for you, you know that. Even Rachel."

Kurt knows that, he does. He knows that he's got Finn and Puck and Mike, but it's not enough, not when his life is threatened. And maybe there was no water to it, maybe it was just fear causing those words to come out, but it had been said and Kurt was afraid. Blaine had offered and he had found a way to accept.

"I know," he whispers.

**xxxxXxxxx**

When class ends that day he hugs everyone goodbye, even Mr. Schue. There are good-natured threats about Regionals, about not losing himself in those uniforms, finding a guy so that he can finally stop whining—courtesy of Puck, and Kurt smiled and was still amazed at how far he had come in the past year—and Kurt will miss their easy camaraderie.

However, things must change, and spending his life in fear for seven hours a day isn't the way to go.

He hears Blaine's voice echoing in his mind as he gets into his car and drives off for his last weekend as a public school student.

_"Don't ever look back, don't ever look back…"_


	5. I Fall Out Of Grace

_I'm so, so sorry for the wait :( this story sucks all the life out of me, I swear. And for some reason right now I've got about seven stories I'm working on. I promise things will be heating up very soon :)_

**xxxxXxxxx**

The Sunday morning that Kurt is scheduled to move in dawns to be one of the few where Blaine wakes up and doesn't remember how he got there.

When he awakes he's on the floor, huddled against the wall. His neck is stiff and his thighs are sore; it's not hard to deduce that he's been like this awhile, but for how long? And what did he _do_?

The clock on his bedside table informs him that it's a little after six in the morning. The last time Blaine remembers looking at that clock the numbers had glowed 10:17 PM. He's been out, out of everything, for over eight hours. Panic seizes and numbs his limbs, rendering him frozen to the floor.

What had happened? He'd been doing some light studying, just so he wouldn't have to cram it all into one night like he had the penchant to do, and he can only recall the words on the page blurring, swimming in and out of focus; it had been then that an annoying itching sensation had appeared on the inside of his right arm.

That arm is wrapped around his right leg and when he moves it he chances a look down, hoping against hope that it isn't true, that the dull throbbing is imagined like so much else in his life. It isn't.

Angry red lines, black-brown dried spots of blood dotting where his nails had gone deeper, track up the soft flesh of the inside of his arm in zigzag patterns. He doesn't remember doing this. _He doesn't remember doing this_.

He feels the familiar early onsets of a panic attack start to take over. He can't breathe, he can't move, but he has to. He has to get to his prescription before Kurt gets here, because what if Kurt were to find him like this, curled up in a helpless ball with a wounded arm? It would look like he had intentionally tried to hurt himself and he hadn't. He doesn't… he doesn't _do_ that.

It's exactly what _he_ wants, Blaine knows. _He_ wants to make Blaine defenseless, dependant, and alone, like that Taking Back Sunday song. He can't lose Kurt. It hasn't been very long that they've known each other but the prospect of being alone again is unfathomable. He's built himself up to be this person for Kurt and he can see it every time he looks into Kurt's eyes, catches the adoration shining and etched into the lines on his face when he truly smiles.

Blaine forces himself up, stumbling toward the nightstand, and with shaky fingers it takes three frustrated attempts before he can unscrew the lid of the pills and dump the correct dosage into his palm. He swallows them dry and barely registers them sliding down his throat.

He can't risk Kurt seeing the scratches on his arms, he can't risk telling him already and sending him away even though a darker part of himself is whispering in his ear _yes, yes, do it, get rid of him, you don't need him, you have me_.

Out of his small closet he pulls a gray Henley off of a hanger and a pair of red basketball shorts from a folded pile on the floor. For someone as fashion-forward as Kurt these items were probably considered sacrilege, and when Blaine envisions his reaction he smiles.

He tries not to wince when the fabric of the shirt rubs against his cuts.

**xxxxXxxxx**

Blaine is the first to greet Kurt when he arrives on Dalton's campus. He looks ridiculously chipper for almost eight in the morning and momentarily Kurt is shocked by the lack of a uniform before rationalizing that yes, it's the weekend and Blaine isn't some doll with an outfit painted on his body.

It's still really weird, though, and from the side of Kurt's car Blaine looks even smaller standing on the great lawn a few yards away.

"Seeing you without the uniform is a little bit like seeing Justin Bieber without the hair," Kurt says as he walks across the parking lot with a cardboard box labeled "Dalton." Blaine gives him a look and Kurt adds, "Public high school, remember? Some girls still think they're twelve years old."

"You can't tell me that you've never had an embarrassing fanboy crush," Blaine says, falling in step with Kurt. He offers to take the box but Kurt refuses, and he thinks that he sees a little smile play at the corners of Blaine's mouth, like he finds something funny, but Kurt can't bring himself to ask. He's too busy admiring the way Blaine's biceps pull at the long sleeves and _no one_ has any right to look that good at this time in the morning.

"I never did," Kurt lies like he wasn't just picturing Blaine's arms bracketing his shoulders as he leans down and…

"I can see _right_ through you," Blaine teases as they near the entrance of the dorms, halting Kurt's train of thought. "You can't stand there and tell me that you never went through the requisite boy band phase."

"I'm standing here telling you that I _did not_ go through that phase."

"You are such a liar, Kurt Hummel."

They set up Kurt's dorm room with relative ease. All the exertion makes Blaine, a normally heavy sweater, that much stickier, and when he runs the back of his hand along his forehead Kurt notices his shiny skin and the dark curls of hair at his temples breaking free of the light amount of gel he'd put in that morning.

"Think you should be wearing that?" he asks, motioning to Blaine's gray Henley that's darkened at the neck and underarms with sweat. Blaine colors, drawing his bottom lip into his mouth. He absentmindedly scratches at the sore spot on his arm and says, "I was really cold this morning. My dorm doesn't always have the best heat."

"Take it off, then. You're clearly not cold now."

They both color at the suggestiveness of the phrase but Kurt manages to laugh it off and say, "Not like _that_, you perv."

Blaine pretends to act hurt but he's secretly relieved that Kurt drops the subject soon after in favor of telling Blaine all about his friends from McKinley, his new stepbrother and stepmother, the wedding he'd planned in less than two weeks, and how excited he is for the Warblers, a spot in which was guaranteed by Wes, after much pleading from Blaine, if Kurt's audition went as well as Blaine had promised it would.

Blaine tells him that his roommate is Thad, a fellow Warbler. Blaine had lured him away that morning under the guise of a surprise philosophy study group meeting and Kurt laughs freely, lightly smacking Blaine on the arm for "deceiving his clearly-gullible friend." Blaine shoots him a crooked grin and Kurt feels his knees goes weak and he tries not to stare too long at the sweat coating Blaine's neck and the lines of his throat.

"He eats a lot and he sleeps a lot," Blaine says. "Basically, he's your stereotypical boy."

Kurt bats his eyelashes—unintentionally?—and replies, "At least we've got you to break the stereotype."

Blaine swallows and blushes and tries not to let it deter him as they set up photo after photo of what Blaine guesses is his family and his friends from McKinley. When he zeroes in on a photograph of Kurt and a petit brunette, Holden's interest is piqued and Blaine can't stop himself from asking Kurt who she is.

"Oh, that's Rachel," Kurt replies absentmindedly as he pulls a scarf from one of his boxes, holding it up and looking at it carefully. "She's a total diva but nice when she wants to be. We've had our ups and downs."

Blaine steadfastly ignores Holden's litany of words describing this girl and counters with his own interal monologue describing Kurt.

They talk and talk until Kurt finally shoos Blaine away around noon under the pretense that there's still some more unpacking and Blaine's been enough of a help, thanks so much. He closes the door with a wide smile and a quick goodbye and Blaine is left standing alone in the middle of the hallway, giddy and a little dizzy.

"Bye," Blaine whispers with a grin.

**xxxxXxxxx**

Later, as Kurt's alone in his room and Blaine's back in his, laying on his bed, he thinks back to the way the sun had played off the contours of Kurt's face, highlighting his prominent cheekbones, the dimple in his chin, providing the perfect yellow backdrop for his ever-changing blue eyes.

Blaine remembers his clear laugh, his wide smile that he'd seen only once, during "Teenage Dream," the effortless way of speaking that they'd adopted, like they've been friends for years, and there's a tugging in Blaine's chest, a sharp sensation that leaves him momentarily breathless.

He swallows and tucks his arms behind his head, stretching his legs out and toeing at a crinkle in the sheets. Kurt is beautiful. Kurt is perfect and Kurt is _broken_. He's broken but he remains strong and diligent and shows no more outward signs of suffering.

Blaine thinks back to when he had transferred, how badly he'd been shaking the day he moved in and for weeks afterwards, how he still cringed when people got too close to him or shut the locker doors. He doesn't know, but Kurt still feels all those things and then some; he's too used to hiding it and keeping a front for his dad.

But of course, Blaine doesn't know these things yet. There's a lot about Kurt that he still doesn't know and a lot Kurt doesn't know about him. He wants to pull Kurt as close as he can, tell him _everything_, but it's too dangerous. Kurt is trusting and happy now for once.

Blaine's probably-maybe in love with him.

He wants to be excited but only half of him is.

**xxxxXxxxx**

Blaine really hates how unpredictable Holden is.

When he'd initially researched his condition not long after it appeared, he'd come across several videos and articles of people talking about their alters. He'd been horrified to learn that sometimes you could house more than one, and that each individual could be drastically different, certain ones sometimes embodying just a single emotion.

Most of these people had alters that would appear at certain times, like when they were eating, and none of them seemed to be too much of a problem. Blaine hadn't come across an article yet about an alter that was so different from the person housing it that it was frightening.

More than anything, Blaine wishes that he would have had a proper psych evaluation. He knew from the moment he gained consciousness after the last treatment session that something was wrong, different; he felt heavier, somehow, his mind a little foggier and stickier in places. The thoughts in his head ran and buzzed without any sense of organization.

It had come to light on its own and Blaine had been absolutely terrified; he wasn't equipped to deal with something like this. The first night Holden appeared out of the shadows Blaine had been crying in his room, curled up on his bed with a nasty bruise forming on his side under his shirt. This was when he was fifteen and when the bullying first picked up speed.

He remembers wishing that it would all just go away, that he could be normal and let everyone just _leave him alone_. It was the first time he heard the voice, and even though it was cold and cruel, disembodied and everywhere all at once, Blaine felt at peace, in a way, like he could just relax and let this thing take over. His tears subsided as the voice spoke, promising him respite, a reprieve from everything going on right now.

This voice promised to keep Blaine safe, but it was lying.

Blaine remembers that when he awoke the next morning he was tired and sore, his muscles aching like he'd been sprinting. Standing and mentally preparing himself for another grueling day at school he remembers glancing over toward his desk. He can still clearly recall the object sticking out of his trashcan: an empty bottle of spray paint, something he hadn't remembered investing in.

At school, rumors flew that Jason's truck had been vandalized, emblazoned with _fag_ and _queer_ in large, crude letters along the side. No one knew who it was, or why they'd done it, but as the rumor mill goes it was suddenly Jason being the one subjected to Blaine's usual terrors and Blaine was, blissfully, left alone to slink to his classes while the boys Jason called friends pinned him against the wall.

A cold chill had run through Blaine and in that moment he _knew_, he knew it had been him but yet not him. It had been that presence, that thing. The very thing that had promised to protect him _had_ protected him. But not in the way that Blaine wanted.

It was then that he knew it wasn't welcome and it was then that a sense of satisfaction crept up on him and he let himself grin as he made it, unscathed, to his next class.

**xxxxXxxxx**

Kurt will never admit it, even if someone holds a match to his wardrobe and a hammer to his laptop, but right after he and Blaine first met he did the most unspeakable, most un-Kurt Hummel thing ever.

He Facebook-stalked Blaine. And, okay, last year that had kind of been him with Finn, but this was a new year and a new Kurt. His Facebook-stalking was completely harmless. He had told himself was it just because he wanted to get to know the competition better; he had labeled it as a purely strategic move and left all guilt at his bedroom door when he typed "Blaine Anderson" into the Facebook search bar.

His profile picture was him with the rest of the Warblers—Kurt noticed with amusement that he had them all as a separate group in his friend list on the side aptly titled "WARBLER FAMILY"—posing in the senior common room.

Instead of spending just a few minutes on the page, like he'd promised himself when he sat down in front of his computer, a half-hour had flown by as Kurt read every detail, from music (Katy Perry, P!nk) to movies (_The Descent_, _The Ruins_) to literature ("give me anything classic and I'm yours") and looked at his photo albums, taking in smiling pictures of Blaine on vacation—_shirtless_, Kurt had noticed with wide eyes—in class, at friends' houses and everything in between.

The photo album labeled "School Pictures" had made Kurt snort a little and smile. It appears he's only been uploading them since middle school, maybe at the request of a parent, and even in school photos, the pictures that always make the most gorgeous person in school undeniably hideous, Blaine had still looked beautiful.

Kurt will never admit it, but he had printed out Blaine's photo from the current school year, 2010-2011, and framed it. At McKinley, it had been in his locker. He doesn't let Blaine see it when they're unpacking together, but the moment that he's left alone in his new dorm he takes it out and looks at it, just smiling, before placing it gently in his desk drawer. Things are going to go his way this time.


	6. We're All Full Of Lies

_Sorry this is so short and so delayed. This story is killer to write. I have all these ideas and they're just jumbled in a notebook right now. I'll try and disentangle them as quickly as I can.  
>This chapter's pretty anti-climactic and not worth being posted after such a long delay, but good things are brewing!<br>_

**xxxxXxxxx**

He always keeps quiet about it unless it involved one-upping Rachel, but Kurt isn't dumb, nor is he oblivious. He can tell that there's something up with Blaine, has been since they've become closer and he's become more attuned to the little things Blaine says and does. Kurt's always had an acute eye for details and Blaine is nothing short of a blatantly open book.

Kurt's seen the twitches, the feared glances over shoulders: there's something up with Blaine, and whether it's residual from his old school or a weird tic, he doesn't know and doesn't ask or call him out on it because he assumes that it's rude to do so, even if curiosity kills him every time Blaine does something out of the norm.

It's more prominent now that they go to the same school and Blaine walks him to lunch and his classes. Blaine's a very touchy-feely kind of boy and while that ignites every kind of spark imaginable in Kurt's body and he definitely _won't_ be complaining, he somehow still feels like maybe they just _shouldn't_. Blaine's a good friend and a good guy and Kurt has a tendency to be very vocal and assertive. He doesn't want to scare Blaine off or ruin their friendship forever.

But he wants, oh god. He wants Blaine so badly. He wants a fucking _boyfriend_ who wants to kiss him and hug him and sing stupid love songs to him. Having his heart beat like it had the moment Blaine confirmed that he was gay surely wasn't healthy and would surely lead to only bad things, especially given his track record.

Still, that doesn't stop him from imagining, something he's entirely too used to.

Blaine always looks so skittish and sometimes they'll meet up at the doorway of their morning Soc class, Blaine looking like he's on his last legs under the weight of his backpack and the heavy dark circles underneath his dulled honey eyes. Kurt had asked once what was wrong and Blaine had snapped back "rough night" and that had been that. Kurt hasn't asked since but just under the surface of his skin he's aching to because Blaine isn't being completely truthful and that sort of hurts.

It _really_ hurts, actually.

Blaine seems better for a week in mid-October, brighter and livelier like someone's changed the contrast and color tone of his world. He laughs and jokes with the Warblers at lunch and becomes somehow even touchier with Kurt than he was before, making Nick and Jeff throw lewd glances Kurt's way whenever Blaine wraps an arm around his shoulders or his waist, tugs him closer and laughs loudly. Kurt shakes his head minutely and rolls his eyes when the pair only laughs.

Blaine seems better until Monday of the following week. Due to their block scheduling, they don't always have Monday morning classes together: instead, they have après-lunch Anthropology on this particular dreary afternoon, an extraneous course that Dalton offered to "enrich the minds of the young boys attending." Kurt took in a heartbeat and Blaine was, thankfully, already taking it.

It's in this class that Kurt sees firsthand just how _not_ okay Blaine really is.

They sit next to each other in the back row, Kurt closer to the left wall than Blaine. They often swap notes if the lecture drags on, as it has the tendency to do with their teacher, and Kurt's a meticulous note-taker, especially with all the genus and species names they're given, unlike Blaine, and most classes find Blaine leaning over his desk and checking Kurt's notes for something he'd missed.

They're learning about early hominids today and Kurt's enraptured, as he always is. There's something fascinating about evolution and inherent human nature to him, the way everyone started off so simply before adapting over millions of years.

Throughout most of the class Blaine has been twitchy, pencil shaking in his fingers as he jots down notes from the Power Point. Kurt keeps glancing over at him, watching the steady _tap-tap-tap_ of his loafer against the metal undercarriage of the desk in front of him. No one else seems to notice since they're both the last in their rows and every other boy is either attentively listening or looking supremely bored.

Kurt puts down his own pencil and straightens his tie from where it had shifted askew. He leans over, elbow resting on the edge of his desk. "Blaine," he whispers, looking quickly at the front of the room before directing his attention back toward the boy in question. "Blaine."

Blaine doesn't answer, even when Kurt's second whisper leans more toward stage rather than conspiratorial. He does, however, jerk violently and gasp for air. This gets the attention of a few boys who then look over at him with brows furrowed and _what?_ hanging unspoken off their lips.

"Blaine?" Kurt asks it this time, voice edging on hysterical as Blaine's eyes open wide, wide, and he takes sporadic, shaky breaths. He looks like he's shaking his head and mouthing _no_, but Kurt can't be sure. "What's wrong?"

Their teacher finally notices and walks as quickly as he can through the narrow rows to the back of the room. He kneels down next to Blaine's desk, his palm flat on Blaine's shoulder and Kurt wants to cry. He's never seen Blaine this undone, this _freaked out_. He can see little droplets of sweat beginning to dot Blaine's hairline and see the unshed tears pooling in his eyes.

"Mr. Anderson." Their teacher's voice is deep, gentle. It must soothe Blaine a little because his breaths become a little steadier, a little deeper and regular. "Do you need to go to the nurse?" Blaine manages a nod and the teacher helps him up, hand insistent on his elbow as Blaine shakily gets to his feet. Kurt raises an eyebrow at the knowing look their teacher gives Blaine, like they're both in on some secret. But why doesn't he know?

Kurt makes to stand up and follow Blaine, class be damned, but their teacher turns on him and says sharply, "Sit down, Mr. Hummel."

"But—"

"We don't need any more disruptions today. Mr. Anderson will be fine."

Kurt glares at him but complies, sitting heavily in his seat and picking up his pencil again. When the lesson picks up where it had been disrupted Kurt slides his phone out of his pocket, texting Blaine as quickly as he can. _What's wrong?_

Blaine's reply vibrates his phone ten minutes later when Kurt's anxiously flipping through the pages in his notebook. He fumbles for his phone and nearly drops it; Edwin, a classmate whom Kurt's had a few chats with, turns a little in his seat diagonal and a desk up from Kurt's and looks at him. Kurt mouths _Blaine_ and discreetly unlocks his phone under the desk and reads Blaine's message. _Panic attack. I get them sometimes when i let my mind wander. I thought of my old school is all. Im ok._

_I don't believe you_. He really doesn't, and he won't deny that he's being a little overprotective of someone who supposedly can handle himself, but Blaine is a potential—and way too unlikely—love interest.

_Really, kurt. Im ok. I'll meet up with you in the commons later_.

Kurt glares at his phone. He's glad Blaine's okay, that's a given, but his story is more than a little fishy. He wants to be included in Blaine's life, and maybe he's being a little selfish, too much of the old self-centered Kurt that he'd tried his best to leave behind, but even their _teacher_ knew. An adult who has little presence in Blaine's life besides class a few hours today knows a secret that Kurt feels like he should know as well.

It's frustrating and maddening, but he has to deal for now.

He texts back _Fine, but you're not getting my lecture notes today_.

It's passive-aggressive and he'll end up giving Blaine the notes anyway once he pouts and whines and bats his ridiculously long eyelashes in Kurt's direction, but it's the bitchiest he'll come to until he finds out what's _really_ wrong.

**xxxxXxxxx**

One paper cup of water and a Klonopin later, Blaine's sitting on the hard bed in the nurse's office, fiddling with his fingers as his heart rate gradually slows. The nurse, an older, plump woman who insists Blaine always call her Cissy, darts around the tiny room, straightening things and pulling bandages and cotton balls from clear jars. He's still shaky and a little light-headed, but his emotions have leveled out and his adrenaline has gone down.

"Are you okay, dear?" she asks, her brown eyes fixed on Blaine as she runs a hand over the top of her head before cupping the tight gray bun in the back. "Nothing else happen?"

Blaine shakes his head and lets out a sigh. "No. Just the usual stuff."

Instantly she's over him, fussing, fiddling with his collar and stroking his cheek. Blaine's reminded of his grandmother and he smiles, a little wan gesture that doesn't reach his weary eyes. "It was him?"

Blaine nods and draws his shoulders down, hunching a little over himself. "He's gotten more… vicious since I became friends with Kurt."

Cissy looks at him knowingly. Blaine had mentioned Kurt to her not long after he'd gone to Kurt's school; he'd talked about Kurt's blue eyes and pretty skin, the troubles he was having at McKinley and how even when he was happy he _wasn't_ happy. The whole time Cissy had sat there behind her desk as Blaine sat cross-legged on the same bed he's on now, doing nothing but smiling at Blaine's enthusiasm. "You can't do anything?" Cissy asks. She understands a little, but not enough. He'll never tell anyone exactly how his mind works because it's scary enough for him to live it without reliving it.

Blaine drops his head in his hands and groans. "No. I hate this. I want to live like a normal kid and I _can't_ because of him. I'm even too afraid to tell Kurt."

"Will you ever tell him?"

Blaine blinks, lifting his head up slightly. "About the fact that all I want to do is be the only person who can make Kurt laugh, like _really_ laugh, the one where he scrunches up his nose and throws his head back and closes his eyes?"

Cissy chuckles and types something into her computer, the clicking of keys and the ticking of the clock the only noise in the room. Muffled through the walls are the sounds of the office: ringing phones, voices, and clacking high heels from the secretaries walking by. "Ever the romantic," she says with a grin. Blaine smiles back a little bitterly. "But what I meant, honey, was if you were ever gonna tell him about Holden."

Blaine shudders at the name, shrugs and wets his lips. He wraps his arms tight around his torso and looks up at the ceiling, counting out the miniscule dots while he searches for something to say. "Maybe. I don't know. I want to, but it's not exactly the greatest conversation starter."

When Blaine had transferred the faculty had been told of his condition, and as a result he's closer with the nurse than most of the students. More than once he's been in here because of Holden's taunting, not to mention his various rehearsal-related injuries. He feels uneasy with so many people knowing, but here no one judges him for being gay or being fucked up. It's nice.

The students and the Warblers know that he's easily susceptible to panic attacks, but he'd lied and told them when he transferred that it was because of the bullies at his old school and his own penchant for thinking too much about the past. It's not completely a lie because he _does_ have a lot of unresolved business in the past because of locker defacing and slurs, but they hardly ever cause panic attacks anymore.

"I want you to be happy," Cissy says, hand light on Blaine's shoulder. He hadn't even noticed her getting up and walking across the room. "If Kurt is this special to you he needs to know."

Blaine looks at the floor in resignation.

He wants Kurt to know, but he doesn't. He's broken, long past the point of being fixed. He has his front but Kurt's observant: it won't last long enough to make anything work.

_He'll leave you like everyone else._

_Just forget it: what do you want with a _boy_ anyway?_

_Do you want to get beat up again? Do you want to _die_?_

He can't escape it._  
><em>


End file.
